After the recent Hamas incursion into Israel, 31 Harvard student groups issued a letter saying they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” Among the 31 groups were “Amnesty International at Harvard,” “Harvard Jews For Liberation,” and the “Harvard Islamic Society.”
Many people felt that the Harvard administration needed to respond — needed to condemn “The Letter of the 31,” and also condemn the Hamas brutality. A letter was released by the Harvard administration; the letter was signed by 18 administrators, including the President.
“The Letter of the 18” was promptly criticized for not forcefully condemning Hamas, and not clearly dissociating the university from “The Letter of the 31.” Then the Harvard President issued her own letter, which seemed to satisfy those who had criticized The Letter of the 18. (The President’s letter and the Letter of the 18 can be found here.)
Why should universities make any statement on political issues? Should universities focus on their core mission (education, knowledge), and leave politics to pundits and politicians?
One of the critics of the “Letter of the 18” was Larry Summers. Summers didn’t say that universities have an obligation to address political issues. Rather, he said that Harvard had spoken out on other issues (Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the killing of George Floyd, etc.), and therefore Harvard shouldn’t remain silent on this issue.
Perhaps Harvard should now say, “In the future, we’re not going to speak out on political issues, we’re going to focus on our core mission, and try to create an environment where individual teachers, and individual students, can discuss political issues in a free, open, and civil manner.”
Some universities make a policy of staying neutral, of not taking political positions. After the Hamas incursion, Stanford issued a statement saying “Stanford University as an institution does not take positions on geopolitical issues and news events.”
Neutrality has long been the policy of the University of Chicago. In 1967, Chicago released The Kalven Report (written by The Kalven Committee), which argued that neutrality was the best policy for a university. But The Kalven Report acknowledged that applying this principle to specific issues wouldn’t be easy; reality is messy. Here are some excerpts from The Kalven Report:
| The mission of the university is the discovery, improvement, and dissemination of knowledge.... By design and by effect, it is the institution which creates discontent with the existing social arrangements and proposes new ones. In brief, a good university, like Socrates, will be upsetting.
The instrument of dissent and criticism is the individual faculty member or the individual student. The university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic. It is, to go back once again to the classic phrase, a community of scholars.... It is a community but only for the limited, albeit great, purposes of teaching and research.... There is no mechanism by which it can reach a collective position without inhibiting that full freedom of dissent on which it thrives. It cannot insist that all of its members favor a given view of social policy; if it takes collective action, therefore, it does so at the price of censuring any minority who do not agree with the view adopted. In brief, it is a community which cannot resort to majority vote to reach positions on public issues. The neutrality of the university as an institution arises then not from a lack of courage nor out of indifference and insensitivity. It arises out of respect for free inquiry and the obligation to cherish a diversity of viewpoints. And this neutrality as an institution has its complement in the fullest freedom for its faculty and students as individuals to participate in political action and social protest. It finds its complement, too, in the obligation of the university to provide a forum for the most searching and candid discussion of public issues.... The sources of power of a great university should not be misconceived. Its prestige and influence are based on integrity and intellectual competence; they are not based on the circumstance that it may be wealthy, may have political contacts, and may have influential friends. From time to time instances will arise in which the society, or segments of it, threaten the very mission of the university and its values of free inquiry. In such a crisis, it becomes the obligation of the university as an institution to oppose such measures and actively to defend its interests and its values. These extraordinary instances apart, there emerges, as we see it, a heavy presumption against the university taking collective action or expressing opinions on the political and social issues of the day, or modifying its corporate activities to foster social or political values, however compelling and appealing they may be. These are admittedly matters of large principle, and the application of principle to an individual case will not be easy. It must always be appropriate, therefore, for faculty or students or administration to question, through existing channels... whether in light of these principles the University in particular circumstances is playing its proper role. Our basic conviction is that a great university can perform greatly for the betterment of society. It should not, therefore, permit itself to be diverted from its mission into playing the role of a second-rate political force or influence. |
One might suppose that members of The Kalven Committee felt obligated to subscribe to the Committee’s report, so the Committee could present a united front. In fact, one member of the Committee (George Stigler) added a paragraph at the bottom of the report, stating where he differed with the report.
The University of Chicago seems to have stuck to its policy of neutrality on political issues. An article in the New York Times says that, of 17 major universities, 15 spoke out on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Chicago was one of the two that didn’t.
Even the most clear-cut political issues are difficult for universities to address. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine seems like a clear violation of every international law, every moral principle. So it might seem natural, appropriate, and unobjectionable for the 15 universities to speak out against Russia’s invasion. But as the New York Times article points out, none of the 15 universities spoke out on the civil war in Ethiopia. Why speak out on Ukraine and not Ethiopia? Why speak out on Ukraine and not the recent crisis in Armenia, or the recent earthquake in Afghanistan?
So even the most clear-cut cases become complicated when you look closely, even the most clear-cut cases are difficult for universities to address. This is why neutrality is probably the best policy. Focus on your core mission. Keep your eye on the ball. Education is such a difficult mission that many would say it’s impossible. Surely it deserves a university’s full attention.
When did universities begin to weigh in on political issues? Before the American Civil War, did universities take a position on slavery? When Germany sank the Lusitania, did Harvard condemn Germany? If universities have only recently begun to address such issues, does this indicate that academia is more prestigious, relative to government, than it once was? Or does it indicate that academia has lost sight of its core mission, and has become politicized? Or does it indicate that academia no longer believes in knowledge and culture, and believes that politics is what really matters, the distribution of money and power is what really matters?
Knowledge and culture can give people a sense of meaning and purpose, they’re the rudder of society. Knowledge and culture have political effects, and even military effects, though they may not directly deal with politics. We see this in Ukraine, where the Ukrainian army is teaching recruits about Ukrainian culture. “The Ukrainians have found that learning about their culture builds team cohesion. Crucially, it provides a clear purpose for their soldiers — it reminds them of what they’re protecting.”
Universities like Harvard should educate students about civilization, and hopefully students will conclude that civilization is worth preserving. Without the sense of shared purpose that education can provide, life becomes a no-holds-barred battle for money and power, an endless war between Republicans and Democrats, Palestinians and Israelis, etc.
Can the Israeli Army defeat Hamas completely? The struggle against groups like Hamas is, at least in part, a struggle for hearts and minds, a battle of ideas. Culture and education can be potent weapons in that struggle, more potent than letters of condemnation. Now more than ever, now when the battle is hottest, Harvard should focus on its core mission.
Update October 13
Yet another letter has appeared, this one written by six Harvard professors, and signed by hundreds. The Letter of the 6 says that the letter of the Harvard President didn’t distinguish clearly enough between “attacks on non-combatants” and “self-defense against those atrocities.” Before there can be “dialogue on the best path forward,” it’s essential that “terrorism is rejected.” The situation is clear-cut, “the events of this week are not complicated.”
The Letter of the 6 ignores history. The Arab argument is that Israel can’t condemn terrorism because Israel was born in terrorism. Israeli leaders like Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon were men of the gun; Begin was wanted by the British authorities for terrorist acts. Fighters like Begin and Sharon didn’t make nice distinctions between civilians and soldiers; they weren’t engaged in “set battles,” they were engaged in irregular warfare, guerrilla warfare. The Jewish scholar Elie Kedourie even suspected Zionists of terrorism against Jews — for example, bombing Jewish neighborhoods in Baghdad, in order to pressure Jews to go to Palestine.1
The grim fact is that violence is sometimes effective, and violence played an important role in the creation of Israel. European civilization was created, at least in part, by Roman violence, Roman conquests. We all live on land that was won by violence, violence that rarely distinguished between soldiers and civilians. The Letter of the 6 ignores history, and makes clear-cut distinctions that sound good in a classroom, but don’t apply in the real world.
If we acknowledge that violence played a role in the creation of Israel, the question arises, Does the violence of Israelis like Begin justify Arab violence? Does it justify Arab violence forever?
We need to start by understanding history, by acknowledging the complexity of the situation, the tragic conflict. Arabs need to ask themselves, “What are we accomplishing by violence? Wouldn’t we have better lives if we turned away from violence, if we looked to the future instead of the past?” Israelis need to ask themselves, “If we keep pushing for more land, more settlements, won’t that make it impossible for Arabs to put the past behind them? Won’t Arabs feel that they need to fight harder if they want any land?”
How should Israel proceed now? Israel has the moral high ground due to the savagery of Hamas. But a long siege of Gaza, a siege that caused starvation among Gaza civilians and Israeli hostages, would turn world opinion against Israel. If Israel launches a ground invasion, casualties among both Israelis and Arabs will be high, and it’s doubtful whether hostages can be freed.
The Israelis want to strike back, as Americans wanted to strike back after 9/11, but sometimes this desire must be repressed. The American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq turned into a double debacle. The Israelis want to topple Hamas, as the U.S. toppled the Afghan government, but if the government is toppled, who governs next? Do you need to occupy the country until a government is established? And if a government is never established, do you need to occupy forever? Will Hamas return to power as soon as Israeli soldiers leave, as the Taliban returned to power as soon as American soldiers left?
The Hamas incursion shows once again that war is often about surprising your enemy. It’s difficult for Israel to maintain permanent vigilance; after a decade or two of tranquility, people inevitably relax their vigilance. It’s also difficult to anticipate where your foe will strike next. If the enemy has the will to inflict a sudden blow, there seem to be infinite ways to do that; as the old saying goes, where there’s a will, there’s a way.
I saw two interviews recently with Thomas Sowell, the prominent Black economist. Sowell just turned 93, and just published a book called Social Justice Fallacies. Sowell is fond of data, and probably regards philosophers as useless drones.
One of his favorite statistics is that, of the ten poorest counties in the U.S., six are white counties, Appalachian counties. This indicates, Sowell argues, that poverty isn’t caused by racism, it’s caused by behavior.
The average income of Blacks is lower than that of Whites. But the average income of Asians is higher than that of Whites. Therefore (Sowell argues), we shouldn’t ascribe Black income levels to bias against non-Whites.
Sowell says that Black households with married couples have a lower poverty rate than the national average. Sowell says that the chief problem facing American Blacks isn’t racism, but rather family breakdown, the decline of two-parent families. In 1940, Sowell says, 17% of black children were raised in single-parent households. Before the end of the century, that number had risen to 68%. This is the big challenge for Blacks, not racism. Family breakdown was caused, at least in part, by programs intended to help Blacks — welfare, etc.
Sowell says that he himself benefited by growing up in a 4-adult family, a family in which he was the only child, and received lots of attention. He says that, as an adult, he ran into a Black man who had grown up in the same Harlem neighborhood in which he had grown up. This Black man had become spectacularly successful. He told Sowell that, as a youngster, he and his siblings would eat dinner, and his father would sometimes watch them eat, eating nothing himself, since food was short. This is the formula for success: self-discipline, hard work, dedication to one’s children, not reliance on government programs.
Sowell says that the poverty rate of Blacks was 87% in 1940, and had fallen to 47% by 1960. Over the next twenty years, the poverty rate of Blacks fell another 18%. So it fell dramatically before the rise of the welfare state, before the passage of the Civil Rights Act, before the development of affirmative action, etc.
Sowell says that nurture matters more than nature, more than biology. Black orphans raised in white families scored higher on IQ tests than other Black children. At the time of World War I, Black soldiers scored lower on IQ tests than White soldiers, but Black soldiers from the North (New York, Philadelphia, etc.) scored higher than White soldiers from the South. So Sowell argues that neither race nor racism is what matters; what matters is environment, nurture, behavior.
In 2020, Sowell published Charter Schools and Their Enemies. “It’s very doubtful,” Sowell says, “if all the racists in the country today have half the negative effects on Blacks as the Teachers Unions have, because the Teachers Unions keep the schools lousy.” Sowell says that, when a charter school rents space in the same building as a public school, charter-school students do far better on tests than public-school students. In the Harlem school that Sowell himself attended, only 7% of public-school students passed the math test, while 100% of the charter-school students, in the same building and from the same neighborhood, passed.
Sowell discusses birth order, irrespective of race. He says that, in 5-child families, National Merit Scholars are the eldest child more than half the time, and the youngest child just 6% of the time.
Sowell says that the dream of Martin Luther King was equal opportunity for individuals, while today’s social-justice warriors want equal outcomes for groups.
Sowell takes a dim view of Trump, and didn’t support him in the 2016 primaries. But he thought Trump was a better President than Obama. In 2020, Sowell said that a Biden victory would be a “point of no return” for the country, the death knell of the country. And Sowell said this before the madness of open borders, before the madness of student-loan forgiveness, before our pell-mell pullout from Afghanistan. Surely Biden has been even worse than Sowell anticipated.
Click here for a 7-minute interview with Sowell, here for a 42-minute interview.
© L. James Hammond 2023
feedback
visit Phlit home page
become a patron via Patreon
make a donation via PayPal